


Broken Glass

by Captains_Orders



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Drinking, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 04:16:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13403280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captains_Orders/pseuds/Captains_Orders
Summary: Concern leads to discovery, and Cor finally sees that the captain of the Kingsglaive is not as cold and unshakable as he seems.





	Broken Glass

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt I've been sitting on for a while and it sort of got away from me and earned itself its own fic. 
> 
> Unbetad.

Cor knows he’s taking a gamble coming here, but he doesn’t feel like he has much of a choice. He’d been to the old apartment building a handful of times, each visit more charged than the last. The stairs creaked in odd spots, the lights flickered in the hall, and Cor had yet to be here when the building didn’t look like it was on its last legs. It wasn’t his place to comment on the place, regardless if he knew the captain of the Kingsglaive could do better. Huffing a bit from the trek up the winding stairs Cor arrives on the right floor and adjusts the collar of his coat. This could be a mistake, probably was a mistake, showing up here unannounced with his only reasoning being a bad feeling in his gut. Worst case scenario Titus slams the door in his face, but at least he’d know the man was ok. It wasn’t even five and no one had seen Titus since he’d finished his morning duties and disappeared at noon. It wasn’t like him to take half a day off, to just up and disappear with a few shrugs from glaives as an explanation, or to ignore any messages from Cor and other staff. Something was off, and Cor was going to figure it out. 

When he reaches the door he hesitates, unsure if this is the best plan or if he’s better off just leaving. He could just shoot Titus a text and wait until tomorrow, but the uneasiness gnawing at his gut won’t leave so with only some reluctance Cor raises his hand and knocks.

“Drautos you in there?” No answer. He knocks again, a little harder this time, voice raising just a bit. “Drautos?” Silence on the other side. The man probably wasn’t even home, he was worried about nothing. The door across the hall creeks, and a curious face peers out. The kid’s expression changes when he sees him, something almost like relief in his eyes. Cor recognizes him, hard not to when the one time they’d met was on his first walk of shame out of Titus’s apartment. Mika was his name. From what little Titus had told him the kid was his neighbor across the hall, the one that brought his groceries once a week. 

“It’s you!” The kid exclaims before Cor can say anything and runs up to him, wringing his hands nervously. He looked worried. Shit.

“Something wrong, kid?” The boy stops, shifts from foot to foot before looking at the door between them.

“I heard a crash, but no one answered when I knocked, so I uh… Mister Drautos doesn’t like to be bothered so I... I was afraid to get help,” he says, almost ashamed. “I was waiting for.. I don’t know, but you’re the only person I’ve ever seen visit, I’m sure he’d want to see you.”

If the whole exchange didn’t happen so fast Cor probably would have felt embarrassed, would have thought about the kid’s words more. As it was concern was now tight in his stomach, and his only real focus was figuring out what was going on. 

“Slow down, kid, it's alright, he’s probably fine.” He says it to assure the kid as much as himself. “When did you hear the crash?” 

“Uh, maybe half an hour ago? Not too long, but still.” 

“Hear anything besides that?”

“No, sir. Just the door slamming when Mister Drautos got home today. He’s never home early.” Cor sighs and looks at the door again, a hand rubbing at the back of his neck. When he looks down again Mika’s giving him an expectant look. “Are you gonna go inside?” His brows rise high enough for Mika to flush and look away. 

“I don’t have a key, kid.” To emphasize his point he jiggles the door knob. He doesn't expect it to be smooth, but it's obvious the door is unlocked, and he masks his surprise quickly.

“Um, guess he forgot to lock the door,” the kid states even though it's obvious. Cor’s almost grateful for the fact, it’d be more complicated otherwise.   
Cor tightens his hold on the doorknob and takes a deep breath.

“Drautos?” When he once more receives no response he lets worry win over logic and slowly opens the door, but before he can inspect the small living space there’s a dark blurr arcing through the air and he pulls the door back, arm outstretched to keep Mika behind him. Glass shatters against the opposite side of the wall making Mika flinch. 

“Go home, kid, I’ve got this.” The kid nods and scampers across the hall and slips back into his apartment, poking his head out a moment later. 

“Let me know if he’s okay?”

“Sure, kid.” Mika seems satisfied with the answer, nodding as he closes the door again and leaves Cor alone in the hall, fingers flexing around the doorknob before he tries again. 

“Drautos, it's me, I’m coming inside,” he calls and this time when the door swings inward there’s nothing to defend against. 

Broken glass lays strewn about the entrance and Cor steps over it gingerly to take in his surroundings. The small wooden side table that used to house the old radio Titus had was in splintered pieces in the middle of the small living space, broken bits of radio mixed in with the debris. Titus himself was in the corner, left leg kicked out in front of himself, arm draped over it, hand empty but still curled as if it was missing the bottle now shattered on the floor. His other hand was cradled in his lap, right knee drawn up to protect it. In all honesty he looked like shit, hair a mess atop his head, face flushed, and eyes glazed and unfocused.

“Are you drunk?” Cor moves closer, unable to slip of his shoes like usual with the floor turned into such a sharp little minefield. 

“Does it matter?” Titus slurs, head tilted back to look at him but making no move from his sprawl on the floor. 

Cor approaches slowly, picking his way through the mess on the floor until he’s standing above Titus. The man’s head rolls back and Titus glares up at him weekly, forced to lean back further into the wall to see him. There’s a lot to take in, his appearance disheveled and messy, the sweatpants and old shirt are freshly stained with spilled whiskey, the change in posture also exposes the way Titus was cradling his right hand close, and now Cor can see the hints of awful bruising on the side of his hand. 

“You’re hurt,” Cor says as he crouches down. Titus flinches away, curling in on himself slightly.

“It’s fine,” he says, glaring at him weakly, and Cor matches his stare as he carefully bats his left arm away. Defeated Titus holds his right arm out, and Cor sees the extent of the damage, blood oozing slowly from the side of his hand where he must have crushed the radio, a shocking show of brute strength if Cor wasn’t more concerned with whether the hand was broken or not. He grasps Titus’s wrist carefully in his hands as he inspects the damage.

“You have any medical supplies?” Titus takes a while to respond, staring at him with an unreadable expression. 

“Bathroom cabinet,” he says after a tense beat of silence.

“Alright come on then.” Cor stands and tugs on the wrist in his hand until Titus finally forces himself to his feet. Almost immediately he sways, staggering on unsteady feet until   
Cor is forced to wrap an arm around his waist to support his weight. What should be a short walk takes twice as long when he’s forced to drag Titus with him, the man now sullen and quiet.

Opening the door is tricky but Cor manages, propping Titus up between the door frame and the wall so he can rifle through the cabinet with both hands. It’s a tight fit for two grown men of their size, but Cor tries to ignore it. Besides the basics, the cabinet is rather barren, and Cor is surprised he even finds a bottle of antiseptic and a small roll of gauze. He would prefer more, but at this point he’ll take what he can get. Dustin was the real field medic, able to save a person’s life in the harshest conditions with the most simple of tools, his own talent in that field wasn’t much, but he could clean and dress a wound and that’s all he needed now. 

Titus doesn’t fight him when he takes his wrist again and holds his hand over the sink, doesn’t flinch when he wets one of the nearby hand towels and dabs lightly at the wound. Cor tries not to look at him, keeping his focus on the task at hand, but every so often he steals a glance. Throughout it all Titus’s expression remains unchanged, eyes glued to their hands as Cor works, a sharp inhale the only reaction when Cor pours a generous amount of antiseptic on the wound.

“I’m going to have to touch your hand to make sure you didn’t break anything,” he says and Titus says nothing, hardly even shrugs, and Cor just sighs and as gently as he can, begins running his fingers over the bones in his hand, dark bruises standing out starkly against his own pale skin. Nothing shifts beneath his careful fingers and no sharp bumps interrupt his careful inspection. “Doesn’t seem like anything's broken, but you should be careful until the bruises fade.” Again Titus says nothing, simply lets him wrap his injured hand in silence. When he’s done he tucks the end of the gauze between the wrappings gently and lets go, but Titus makes no move, simply stares at his hand with a faraway look. Cor sighs and wraps his arm around the man’s middle again. “You need rest, c’mon.” 

The trek to the small bed on the other side of the apartment is no easier than the one to the bathroom was, but Cor gets them there without incident. He removes his arm from around Titus and gets ready to ease him down on the bed when the man snakes an arm around his waist and pulls them flush, wobbling from the sudden shift before they steady. Warm breath ghosts across his neck smelling sharply of alcohol and he shudders, the tables turned abruptly.

“What are you doing, Drautos?” The question is quiet, but it thunders in the silence. 

“Isn’t this why you came here?” Lips brush his ear and trail down, kisses that are sloppy wet and impossibly soft. “It’s why you always come here.”

“You’re drunk,” Cor reminds him, but he doesn’t push him away. Titus leans back slightly, eyes clear and dark. 

“And?”

“And you’re not yourself,” Cor insistes, planting a hand on the man’s chest and holding firm. His eyes stray to the destruction in the middle of the living space, pointedly trying to ignore Titus and his advances. “What happened, Drautos?” In an instant Titus’s demeanor changes.

“I don’t want your pity,” he snaps, but the anger in his words doesn’t match the look in his eyes. 

“I’m not giving it.” They stand there for what is easily a minute, staring each other down, stubbornly waiting for the other to give in first. Much to Cor’s surprise it's Titus who does it, sagging until he drops onto the bed unceremoniously, head in his hands. 

“It's the same every year,” he mutters. “The same damn thing every year. My home burned, I watched it, saw people die, I can still feel it.” He shudders, lets his hands fall away to lay shaking in his lap. When he finally looks up at Cor it's with the face of a broken man, and Cor feels his heart clench in his chest. “They play a broadcast on the anniversary every year, to talk about the fall of my home, of Cavaugh…” Cor waits while he tries to compose himself. He’s never seen Titus vulnerable like this, alcohol making him open in a way that hurts him to see. “It turned into a debate and-” He stops abruptly, like he’d finally realized his own openness, jaw clenched. 

“You broke it,” Cor finishes. Without thinking too hard on it he moves to sit next to Titus on the bed. “I don’t pity you, Drautos, but no man can go unaffected from something like that, it's only human. Sometimes you lose your temper, it happens.”

“Why did you come here, Leonis?”

“Honestly, I was worried about you.” Titus tenses and Cor doesn’t dare look over at him. “I can go,” he adds. “You’re fine now, I can go.” He stands, barely makes it a step forward before Titus reaches out and grabs his arm.

“Stay,” he whispers, “please. I don’t… I don’t want to think, and the silence...” Cor turns to look at him, cheeks flushed with slowly sobering shame and it tugs at him in a way it shouldn’t. He moves carefully, slow enough that even Titus and his addled senses could stop him if he needed to, and cups his cheek, slowly lowering himself to straddle his lap. With one hand he tilts his chin up, forcing Titus to look him in the eye. 

“Alright, I’ll stay, and we don’t have to think about it. It’s what we always do.” When he leans forward to kiss him Titus tastes of cheap whiskey and regret, but he doesn’t let it deter him. This was why he came here as infrequently as he did, Titus was right about that, and now at least it would provide a much needed distraction for both of them.   
When their kisses grow more heated Titus wraps his arms around them and shifts until Cor’s back meets the stiff mattress and he’s forced to tear his lips away. If there wasn’t such urgency behind the movements it’d be ridiculous, he’s still wearing his shoes, but he’s not given the time to feel strange about it. It’s a slight struggle, almost comical, for Titus to remove his top, awkward as the action is with one hand. Cor doesn’t try and help him, simply runs his hands up his sides, digging his nails in with just enough pressure to make Titus hiss. Just the way he likes it. Titus leans on his right arm, letting his injured hand rest close to Cor’s head as he uses his left to ruck up his shirt above his chest, head dropping to give graceless attention to the newly exposed skin. Their hands fumble against each other as they both make to free each other from their pants. It’s easy to tug Titus’s sweats down enough to expose his length, but Titus makes a low frustrated noise akin to a growl as he struggles with the zipper on Cor’s jeans. 

“Let me,” he says, is free hand finding its way into that messy dark hair and pulling slightly. Titus relents, and he’s able to pop the button and slip the zipper down, reaching under the band of his briefs and freeing his slowly hardening cock. 

Not wasting a moment Titus bats his hand away and takes hold of him, pulling a gasp from his lips. There’s little finesse as Titus strokes him, no gentleness in the way he tugs him to hardness, urged on by the gasps Cor can’t contain. 

“Wish I could fuck you,” Titus says, releasing his grip to press closer until their lengths brush together. Cor arches into him with a moan, core clenching with want, hand teasing both their lengths until he slips it around and pulls Titus closer with a grip on his ass.

“Next time,” he promises, arching up, seeking friction. 

Like he always does when their intimate Titus takes the hint, wrapping his calloused hand around them both, pumping them both as he begins to rock his hips, creating the perfect friction. Cor lets his hand join in, their fingers meeting and bumping as they work each other closer to completion. His thumb stretches and swipes over the weeping head of Titus’s cock, and he comes with a strangled groan. Alcohol always makes it fast, and when Titus’s hand stills as he rides out his pleasure, Cor chases his own until he finally hits his own limit, their come making a mess of his stomach. Titus drops, a dead wait on top of him until his wriggling and shoving gets the larger man to roll to his side, a tight fit on the narrow bed. Cor sits up and stands, only a bit unsteady as Titus flops onto his back and immediately takes up the space he left. 

“I’m gonna clean up,” he says, and Titus only grunts in response, eyes fluttering to a close. Cor sighs and makes his way to the bathroom, wetting the remaining hand towel and wiping the mess of come from his abdomen. When he gets back to Titus he’s asleep, something he definitely needed. He doesn’t stir when Cor leans over him to clean him off and tuck him back into his pants, not even when he rolls him onto his side, no small feat. 

There’s a fair many thoughts vying for attention in his mind and Cor ignores all of them as he sets about fixing up the small apartment. The small room near the front of the apartment ends up being the utility closet, and he grabs the old broom that must have come with the place and sets to work. He’s grateful now that he didn’t bother taking off his shoes as he carefully sweeps the broken glass around the front of the apartment into the dustpan, depositing it into the trash with a clinking rain. The sound doesn’t wake Titus, he doubts anything will until he’s slept off the dangerous mix of hurt and drink, so Cor doesn’t worry too much about keeping quiet. The splintered pieces of the end table and crushed radio are easier to pick up, and he sweeps up after the larger pieces are in the trash just to keep himself busy.

Titus had asked him to stay, but damn if it makes him a coward he can’t. Titus had been too open, too vulnerable, and Cor feels like he’s seen a side of him he had no right to see. Best to leave now, before he wakes, now that Cor knows he’d be alright. Still it doesn’t stop him from pulling a glass from the cabinet of the small kitchen and filling it with water from the tap. He doesn’t think too much about it when he sets it on the bedside table, Titus snoring soft and oblivious as he covers him with the blanket on the foot of the bed, even though he has to tug it out from under Titus’s legs first. A knot lodges in his throat and he swallows past it, making it out of the apartment with a sudden speed, making sure the door will lock behind him. When it clicks shut he lets out a long breath, head resting against the wood. Damn why did everything have to be so complicated. 

He doesn’t let himself stay there for long, makes his way across the hall and knocks lightly on the door. Mika opens the door just a crack, relief on his face when he sees it's him.

“How’s Mister Drautos?” Cor sighs, rubs at the bridge of his nose. 

“He’s gonna be fine, kid.”

“Was he happy to see you?” Cor says nothing, hands balling into fists at his sides before they relax again. 

“I dunno, kid,” he replies with a shrug, turning to walk away before the boy asks him anything else. “But he’ll be fine.” There’s more he could say but he stops himself, leaves it at nodding goodbye and making his way down the hall. 

If he tries he can pretend he’s not running away, but though he tries to keep his thoughts from straying down that path they do it anyway. Maybe he was running away, but it in all honesty he had no idea what he was running from. But maybe that was a lie too.


End file.
